We love websites and online articles, and if you’re reading this, you might just like them too. For accessible starting-points for various tough questions, the world wide web is a great medium to host Christian Apologetics content.

Over the next three weeks we want to highlight three different sources of useful training that will help you grow in your own apologetics and evangelism. First up, websites.

So here are five (in no particular order) fantastic online resource centres.

The Poached Egg

What they say:

The Poached Egg is a large and continually expanding virtual library of articles and essays compiled from all over the World Wide Web. Noted apologists, biblical scholars, philosophers, scientists, historians, students, and laymen all come together under this one site.

What we say:

Greg West does an excellent job of finding articles from all over the web and bringing them under ‘one roof’. Frequently updated and with a good archive there’s plenty to learn from here.

Apologetics 315

What they say:

The vision of Apologetics 315 is to provide educational resources for the defense of the Christian faith, with the goal of strengthening the faith of believers and engaging the questions and challenges of other worldviews.

What we say:

Great website, jam-packed with quality content and links to further resources. Updated frequently. We love this site.

RZIM (EU)

What they say:

Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) exists to reach those who have objections and questions about the Christian faith, and seeks to challenge those who shape the ideas of our culture with the credibility of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What we say:

The RZIM Europe team are frequently speaking, writing, and debating all over the world. They run a world-class training centre within the University of Oxford (more on that later) and much of the content they produce is linked to online, from talks to articles to Q&A sessions.

Reasonable Faith

What they say:

Reasonable Faith aims to provide in the public arena an intelligent, articulate, and uncompromising yet gracious Christian perspective on the most important issues concerning the truth of the Christian faith today.

What we say:

BeThinking

What they say:

bethinking.org aims to bring together the best possible resources for thinking about and communicating the Christian faith. Its goal is to help to prepare all Christians to provide an answer to those who deny the truth of Christianity.

What we say:

A really clear introduction into some of the big subjects within Christian Apologetics. Broken down into ‘Introductory’ ‘Intermediate’ and ‘Advanced’ sections, there’s lots to learn about here and at whatever level you’re looking for.

The Unbelievable? Podcast (ht Trevor)

What they say:

So you want to find a discussion on Islam? Science? The Bible? Explore the vast and growing archive of “Unbelievable?” debate programmes in this thematic index. Click on one of the four categories above – ‘Christianity’, ‘Cults and New Age’, ‘World Religions’ or ‘Atheism’.

What we say:

Justin Brierley does an excellent job with his weekly podcast attracting the leading intellectuals of our time to discuss Christianity. Lots of big names and lots of interesting debates. A rich archive, both audio and video, gives you a great taste of what is offered. Tune in on Saturdays at 2pm and subscribe to the feed. You wont want to miss an episode.

Have We Missed Something?

Let us know if you have a favourite online Christian Apologetics resource hub and we can add it to the list. Leave a comment below.

Next week: Useful Apologetics Books

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We are a confusing country to many looking on from the outside. Our football pitches are measured in yards and our rugby fields in metres. We take our beer in pints and our petrol in litres. (Yet we measure vehicle efficiency in miles per (Imperial) gallon – what?!). It rather threatens to make a mockery of the ‘united’ part of the UK, doesn’t it?

Yes, it’s confusing all right.

Equally, within the church in Britain there is confusion in how we should go about evangelism.

I Don’t Want An Argument

“You can’t argue someone into the Kingdom of God,” says Jim at pastorate to Bill, arguing that argument is not a valid method by which to bring someone to believe.

Bill is stumped by this. He has been at his local with his mates a couple of times in the last few months and on occasion the topic of conversation had turned to his faith. His friends’ curiosity, thinly veiled behind their cheap mockery, has led them to question Bill about why he’s a Christian.

Bill has gone home from these times at the pub thinking about what he can say. “Why did I become a Christian?” he asks himself, hoping to uncover some little gem of brilliance he’s temporarily forgotten with which to respond to his mates.

“If only I could find that one thing, the knockout punch, the explosive-statement. I’d throw out the pin, toss my hand grenade-of-a-thought into the middle of the group, and just walk away.”

A slight, wry smile crosses Bill’s face as he visualises the feeling he’d get from this. But the trouble is, Bill is stuck. He can’t find that grenade.

The Nature Of The Battle

I wonder if you can relate to Bill?

The Demolition Squad is called the Demolition Squad for two reasons. Firstly, army demolition experts – “sappers” – in WWII were cool (see ‘The Guns of Navarone’ and every other war film of daring courage). Secondly, we believe that there are good reasons to believe in Jesus, and that these good reasons can have an explosive effect in bringing down arguments that obstruct someone’s view of Jesus.

But to answer Jim’s question, ‘Can you argue someone into the Kingdom of God?’ – of course you can’t. The Holy Spirit brings a person to repentance.

You cannot argue someone into the Kingdom of God because argument starts with an arguer, that is, a person. Imperfect little old me will never, ever be a strong enough foundation to support a perfect conclusion: God.

The Bible talks of reality in the language of two kingdoms: a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light. These two spiritual kingdoms are at war and we are in the middle of the battle.

How do we know this? God told us. In fact, that’s how we know anything. How do we know about truth, right and wrong, the afterlife etc.? God revealed it to us.

This revelation comes to us in a few ways, but ultimately the greatest revelation is that God himself came to us in the person of Jesus. It’s rather blatant if you think about it. God, in order to get us to know, came and told us.

We know God because God revealed Himself to us. We know He wants others to know what we know because he told us that very thing. [1 Timothy 2:4]

The starting point of everything – including all knowledge – is God. As the Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is beginning of knowledge.” [Proverbs 1:7]

C.S. Lewis puts it brilliantly.

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun his risen: not only because I see it, but by it I see everything else.”

The Strategy

The important thing for Bill to remember, and every Christian going about the work of an evangelist, is that our fight is not “against flesh and blood” – we are in a spiritual battle. [Ephesians 6:12]

Because the starting point of everything is God our strategy is to ask people to repent. We show our conduct before others, and our love towards our brothers and sisters in Christ, and use our arguments against false knowledge, in order to make Jesus visible. We present Jesus to people and then we ask them to repent.

We cannot know anything apart from God and we cannot know God apart from repentance.

Our arguments are weapons that we deploy in our God-given arsenal to shatter the deceptive ploys of the enemy. The arguments don’t win the war; Jesus wins the war. Quite simply, our arguments help people to see the victory.

The next time you’re at your local, and your friend asks you about your faith, smile, pray, and enjoy the beginning of the great task of helping introduce your friend to the Saviour of world. Relax. Victory is not something to be won at the pub, but something to be shared.

Oh, and come back here from time to time to pick up few hand grenades to help you along the way.

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This weekend is massive. It represents the crux of the Christian faith. It is a request to us to hit pause on our lives. Where we spend most of our time gazing forwards, Easter turns our vision back to the single focal point of history.

A couple of millenia ago, on a hill outside of Jerusalem, three men were nailed to rough, wooden crosses. Those three men died horrendously agonising – excruciating – deaths. But the man in the middle didn’t stay dead for long.

Now you can have Buddhism without Buddha, you could have Islam without Mohammed. But you can’t have Christianity without Christ.

And you can’t have Christ without the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Laws and rules and paths and journeys – they don’t hang on one person. Anyone could come up with them. But Christianity is different. It is a faith in a living person who died and rose again.

Quite simply, it all hangs on Jesus.

The Apostle Paul says, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless.” There it is. The heart of the matter. No resurrection; no faith.

If we could show from the historical record that Jesus didn’t exist, or that he didn’t die, or that he didn’t rise again, we have no faith.

If we can prove that dead people always stay dead and resurrection is totally impossible, we have no faith.

Tim Keller sums things up this way:

“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.”

Defeat into Victory

There’s a great line from Chuck Palahniuk in his popular book (turned-into-movie) Fight Club: ”Only after disaster can we be resurrected.”

Oh how true this is. We’ve had the disaster; Christ has the resurrection.

The Bible describes this world perfectly. Created for life, with promise and hope, we now struggle in a broken system.

We fell out of relationship with God when we proudly thought we could go it alone, do it our way. Our rebellion came at a cost though and the price was more than we could pay. So God himself came to earth as one of us, as Jesus, to not only show us the way but be the very way back into relationship with our creator.

By dying a death he did not deserve he paid the price we could not pay. The cross – that awful Roman torture device – has become a symbol of cosmic love offered to this world.

And then he came back to life.

Death touches everything and steals from whatever it can. We had no answer to it, only remedies to distract us from it. But like administering Calpol for a broken leg, our efforts made no headway against our greatest adversary.

Christ’s resurrection from the grave shattered death’s hold on us and this world.

This Easter, pause a little. Linger over this event in history which changed the course of this world. Be resurrected out of disaster into new life. The victory belongs to Jesus and he offers it to all of us today.

photo from FreeFoto

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In a recent Demolition Squad article we saw how well established Jesus is in the historical record. History indeed shows Jesus as a man whose life and death had a huge impact on the communities, governments, and religions around him. So what was it about Jesus that produced these momentous tremors on the historical seismograph? The answers can be found in the four accounts of the life of Jesus: the gospels.

Now the four gospels of the New Testament claim to be based on eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. The thing is, as far as historians can tell, none of the four gospels were written in the location they were set in. Countries like Syria (Matthew) and Egypt (Mark) are thought likely locations for the origin of these texts, so also is the Greek city of Ephesus (John). The Gospel of Luke may well have been written in Rome or Antioch and yet in the opening of his book Luke says that his writing is based on accounts, “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.”

Well it is all very nice claiming eyewitness testimony you might say, but isn’t it a far simpler explanation to conclude that actually the origins of these books show that these so-called accounts are fabricated stories, made up far away from where the events supposedly took place?

To begin to answer this objection we must first take into account the style of writing of the gospels. Scholars agree that the gospels are presented to us as straightforward historical account. That is, they are full of facts such as names of places and names of people etc. Tom Clancy may fill his novels to the brim with every last detail but historical fiction didn’t bother with such exactitude. It just wasn’t the way it was done. The story was much more important that than the finer points. However, historical account was very much concerned with the facts.

Well, of course, showing that the style was historical account in no ways shows that what we have is a faithful account. What is does show however is that the authors were presenting their accounts to their readers as history. In that age historians thought that history had to be written during the time when eyewitnesses of the historical events were still available to be cross-examined. Polybius – a 2^nd C. BC Greek historian – said that the role of the historian was “to believe those worthy of belief and to be a good critic of the reports that reach him.” The obvious benefit of this is that names, dates, people involved etc. – these could all be corroborated or disputed by the eyewitnesses themselves. In this way, the gospels leave specifics to be examined.

Ronin, with Robert De Niro

In the film Ronin, there’s a great scene the where CIA agent Sam, played by Robert De Niro, confronts Spence (Sean Bean) who claimed to be have been in the SAS. Spence is defending his tactics and Sam isn’t buying it so he pushes him on his story. “What’s the colour of the boathouse at Hereford?”, he demands. Spence falters, his story crumbling as a detail that would have been known to him if he had ever been around the SAS training base caught him out. Spence wasn’t in Hereford, he didn’t train with the SAS, he didn’t know the details.

Richard Bauckham published a book in 2006 called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. One brilliant piece of research highlighted in this book looks at the difference between Jewish names in Palestine in the 1^st Century, and Jewish names in Egypt in the 1^st Century. The popular names were different for the two countries despite common culture and language.  An author writing in 1^st Century Egypt, who had no knowledge of Palestine, would simply not know this information. Yet, when we read the Biblical accounts we see two things. Firstly, the frequency of the names used throughout the Gospels correlates extremely well to the names recorded by wider history from Palestine at that time.

Secondly, and quite incredibly, the popular names are well qualified. Let me explain. In my GCSE maths class there were four Jonathans in the room, and we all sat next to each other on purpose. To our 16-year old minds it was hilarious when our teacher would shout “Jonathan!” and we would all simultaneously express complete innocence. But it didn’t work when our surnames were snarled at us from the front.

Similarly, when we see a popular name mentioned, like Simon (most popular in Palestine at the time) we see a qualifier e.g. Simon Peter or Simon the Zealot. That is how a guy called Simon would have been known to his friends, because there were many Simons around. But someone with a less popular name wouldn’t need a qualifier, and indeed, the gospels show this too.

The fact is that the gospels are full of precise details that scholars have since verified as authentic. We see place names, distances, and the names of people involved all matching up. The four gospels were presented and accepted in the 1^st Century as true historical accounts. 2000 years on after much research our studies still continue to show how incredibly trustworthy these documents are. The evidence has been shown to be sound and now it is up to each of us to decide if we will accept Jesus for who he, and history, says he is.

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‘Why?’ is out now and available from The Book Depository & Amazon

When I first heard about this book I was in the middle of thinking about suffering myself. I was writing an essay on evil and was consumed with the topic. So it was with great interest that I watched from a distance the last few months of the book’s production.

Of course, it’s easy to sit back and isolate the ‘problem of evil’, treating it purely intellectually. Pub chat, blog posts, academic essays – they go some way to examining the issue but all the talk falls short of actually confronting the full scope of this topic which seems to be as an 18-tonne truck, poised to run any one us over at any moment.

Yes, we can philosophise and wax lyrical about Hume, Epicurus etc. etc. but as we are told by Leonato in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, “there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently.”

It is with great sensitivity that Sharon Dirckx delves into this age-old problem. The genius of this book lays not so much in the answers given – which are presented clearly, concisely, and reasonably – but the manner in which the answers are wrapped up in bite-sized reality.

The book starts with the story of Millie, a little girl with a rare brain abnormality. The pain and anguish of the parents is conveyed through the pages as we watch their little girl fight for life. The story of this family retold frames the focus of the book as the search for meaning in the midst of pain and suffering.

The philosopher William Lane Craig has said that the question of suffering is, “undoubtedly the greatest intellectual obstacle to belief in God.” Perhaps in part the obstacle is so large because it is heard so loudly. It is of course a question that is common to all people. As Philip Brooks, quoted in the foreword by Ravi Zacharias, says, “If you preach to a hurting heart, you will never lack for an audience.”

Through the five stories of people coping with suffering the book positions the answers given as answers to real questions, questions any of us may ask. Far from an abstract treatment of the issue, we are tenderly coached to answer the questions honestly, in the face of reality.

However, it is the final narrative – that of the author’s own experiences – that provides the book with the proper tone to tackle this question. In sharing the suffering of her own family, Sharon Dirckx is able to treat this thorny subject with great care and sensitivity. Sharon’s shared experiences presents the text with a voice that resonates with the prayer, searching, and questioning that has been a part of her and her family’s life.

The stories of Sharon’s family, the other five stories, the answers from Christianity (alongside answers from other religions), and ultimately the portrayal of a deeply caring God, in Jesus, offers the reader a true hope.

I have already been happy to send copies to friends seeking answers in this world that can hold much pain, inevitably – or so it seems – coupled to confusion. Why? gently offers an accessible peace by placing suffering into a context of meaning, and ultimately hope. Sharon shows how Christianity – a relationship with Jesus Christ – makes sense of this broken world. And more than that – because knowing about something is never enough – we are shown how Jesus enters into our world and suffers for us and with us.

Buy this book, read it, and then think about whom you can give it to.

Why? is published by IVP and is available to buy from The Book Depository and Amazon.

This review was first published on jonathansherwin.net

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On a recent bitterly cold day I was trudging around the internment camp of Auschwitz, Poland, listening to my guide explain this building and that, when I came across a plaque that caught my attention. The plaque was affixed to the side of the wall of one of the buildings that housed the inmates. It marked the courageous life of one man by the name of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest.

Plaque in Auschwitz Internment Camp for Maximilian Kolbe

The story of Kolbe is one I will not forget quickly. After an alleged escape attempt by a prisoner of the camp, the inmates were assembled and from them 10 men were selected for death by starvation. The random brutality of this response was designed to supress any fleeting ideal of escape that may have surfaced in the minds of the imprisoned men.

One of the chosen ten began to break down in tears as the realisation of his fate became apparent to him. At this point Kolbe steps forward from the ranks and offers himself in the place of his fellow inmate. Laughing, the camp’s officers agree.

Locked in a room underground, Kolbe and the 9 other men are left to slowly starve to death.

After the war was over, the camps liberated and the few inmates still alive rescued, one man by the name of Franciszek Gajowniczek limped away from Auschwitz to begin the rest of his life. His life had been spared by the selfless act of the polish priest, Kolbe, who a few years earlier offered himself in Gajowniczek’s place.

Kolbe’s act became the ‘salvation’ moment of Franciszek’s life, who incidentally went on to live to the ripe old age of 95. His entire future existence after Auschwitz was owed to one man, Maximilian Kolbe.

Ultimate Salvation

When Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross to pay the price for a crime he didn’t commit, what was happening had far deeper significance than the people murdering him knew at the time. The Romans had killed a man entirely unaware of the part that they played in the greatest selfless act the universe has ever witnessed.

When Jesus died, the pivotal point in all of human existence was permanently established. Jesus’ death was the salvation moment for not just one internment prisoner, but for the entire world imprisoned by sin and without hope.

God’s love and justice met at the cross. God himself took our place and paid for our mistakes and the mess of the world. Justice demanded due payment and as we faltered Jesus stepped forward and took our place, freeing us to life.

Established in History

You can visit Auschwitz today, as I did, and find the plaque honouring Maximilian’s life. You too can visit the small, dark cell where he was starved and murdered, as Gajowniczek did every year after his release. You can read the accounts of the fellow inmates and others at the camp published for the world to examine.

Maximilian’s story is grounded in history. His exemplary life and death still inspire many today.

So too Jesus’ exemplary life and death reach out to us from history to ask us to learn from his story. Attested to by reliable eye-witness accounts, preserved through written records for generations after to examine, the stories of Jesus Christ reach out to us today and leave us with a question to answer.

Maximilian died and we celebrate him for a hero. We can ask why he did what he did but we ask that question from the comfort of our own detached lives, in the knowledge that the benefit from the act was spent on one man.

But with Jesus the benefit is yet to be determined. Jesus’ story isn’t merely inspiring, a courageous tale of an act of wonderful human selflessness. That’s because the story of Jesus’ life and death isn’t over. We don’t observe it neatly wrapped, framed, and simply restricted to the historical annuls.

When we read of the life and death of Jesus we become aware that we are immediately and inescapably involved in the story. Jesus died that all people would be liberated from their mess and the mess of the world. The benefit of his ultimate selfless act isn’t reserved for one man alone but open to all of us.

Jesus stepped forward, in front of us, to take our place, and set us free. The great selfless act has happened and the freedom that has been bought at great price is offered to you now. The only question now left is: of what benefit is his sacrifice to you?

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The great, British philosopher Bertrund Russell once said,

“Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do now know anything about Him.”

Why I Am Not A Christian

Jesus Christ is arguably the most influential man in the whole of human history. So, outside of the Bible – which incidentally is an incredibly reliable document – what kind of evidence is there that Jesus ever existed? Is dear old Mr. Russell right? Is there any extra-biblical evidence for Jesus?

Well, yes, there is.

Non-Christian History

Jesus was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth under the watch of the Roman Empire, which covered much of Europe, Northern Africa, and parts of the Middle East. So what did the Romans, the rulers of the day, have to say? Here’s Tacitus, probably the best Roman Historian in the world:

“Christus … suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.”

This small excerpt is part of a longer piece on how the Romans treated the early Christian church. Tactitus, writing in the second half of the 1^st Century, corroborates Biblical facts about Jesus and the birth of the early church.

A popular objection to the Biblical record may be, “The early Christians made up the stories about Jesus because they needed to spread their false message.” Well, Tacitus and the Romans didn’t need to spread the message. Quite the opposite; they wished the Christians didn’t exist! This is simply an honest historical account of the facts.

Another group of people not exactly tickled by the arrival of Jesus were the Jews. So let’s see what the Jewish historical record says.

Here we have Josephus. Writing in the early 90s (first Century) this Jewish Historian says:

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.”

Hmm. Jesus, Pilate … the extra-biblical record does seem to be emerging clearly.

Christian History

We also have records from Christians. We have the Bishop of Rome, Clement, here writing to the church in Corinth:

“The Apostles received the Gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ was sent forth from God. So then Christ is from God, and the Apostles are from Christ.”

Or how about Ignatius? Just one of the many Christians murdered in Rome. He wrote of the crucifixion, as did Justin Martyr. In fact, both of these men quote facts, places, and names – all things easily checked by their readers.  Additionally, both of these men were martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ.

It was the 16^th Century French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, who said, “I believe those witnesses who get their throats cut.”

That’s the thing. These historical records were composed by people who didn’t have much to gain but plenty to lose. Reputation, peace, or even their lives were at stake.

So, back to Mr Russell. You may not want Jesus to have existed for any number of reasons but the plain facts of the matter are that the historical record has overwhelming evidence for the remarkable life of Jesus Christ. As one New Testament scholar has put it, “The theory of Jesus’ non-existence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question.”

If Jesus didn’t exist then we don’t need to deal with him seriously. But he did exist and his life challenges us today. Will we ignore him, or will we brave further investigation of the man who has changed human history more than anyone else in all time?

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It used to be that the idea of belief in God, particularly the Christian God, was laughable in intellectual circles. Not so any more. Today you don’t have to search too hard to find a Christian in a philosophy or science department in a leading UK university.

And so the battleground moves on. Leaving behind the intellectual front, those with a particular disdain for Christianity retreated only to launch an offensive on the moral character of God. Instead of talking about such things as beginnings and designers and all the rest of it, now perhaps some of the thrust is towards what sort of a God is there.

Richard Dawkins, the best-selling author known for his articulate attacks on religion – and Christianity in particular – takes special objection to the character of God found in the Old Testament. Dawkins tells us that “[the] God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction”, before unleashing a torrent of nasty character attributes upon God. Whilst leaving aside claims of the Bible as “fiction” for a later article, the accusation of unpleasantness should be taken very seriously.

Let us be quite clear here, the Bible has some very difficult passages to digest. Many of these are found in the Old Testament and centre on the exploits of Joshua in his handling of the Canaanites.

Cries of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ and ‘Genocide’ ring out from the towers of atheism. How on earth could you love that same God? How on earth could you say that same God is loving? After all, we rightly condemn the atrocities committed at the hands of the Nazis upon the Jews, or of blood spilled in Rwanda in 1994, so how can the God of the Old Testament not be held to the same standard?

Some of the problematic parts can be found in the book of Joshua. In one such place it is said that Joshua “struck all the land” and “left no survivor”. He is said to have “utterly destroyed all who breathed”. Heavy words. Now to set the scene briefly, we must understand something about Canaanite culture. It was bloodthirsty. Think of a scene from the film 300, but worse. Child sacrifice? Absolutely, it was built in to the heart of the culture. Bestiality? Part of the norm. If we today, part of a nice, civilised, anaesthetised, culture were to be transported back to their day we would most likely break down under sensory overload at the horrors that confronted us.

But surely, you might say, there could be a better way to deal with this than killing everyone. After all, isn’t God supposed to merciful? Well, we read earlier in Genesis that God was patient. In fact, God waited 430 years before acting. We also read that this sort of thing wasn’t just a judgement on one people group, and indeed, when the Israelites, God’s own people, got mixed up in some bad things their judgement was equally bad.

But why did everyone have to die? The question persists. Paul Copan, author of Is God A Moral Monster?, looks at the wider culture of the Ancient Near East. Copan explains that it was common to practice the art of exaggeration in warfare rhetoric, a practice still used today. Let me give you an example. When Andy Murray thrashed Roger Federer in straight sets to win the Olympic Gold Medal all the talk was of the “annihilation” of his opponent. Reading the reports do we for a moment think that Andy, in the match, jumped over the net and ruthlessly murdered Roger? Not at all! We understand that this language in this context means that Andy well and truly thumped Roger. In the same way, the language used in the Bible here followed the pattern of the age. And how do we know? Immediately following on we read commands for the Israelites not to marry or associated with the Canaanites. Funny talk if by this time their nation were supposed to be extinct.

The Bible is a complicated book written over 1500 years and spanning several cultures. Cheaply writing off God with strongly emotive terms such as “genocidal” simply won’t do without proper examination of the text and the culture.

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 “Ladies and Gentleman, the captain has just switched on the seatbelt sign in anticipation of upcoming moderate turbulence.” A string of words never followed by a cheery, “enjoy it!” When the bumps start I instinctively look out the window, just to make sure the wings are still there. I’m suddenly rudely aware of the extent that I’m not in control. Additionally, the thought occurs to me that if airplane disasters are simply statistics then every flight is a reduction in my odds.

So just how dangerous is turbulence? To answer that question, I turned to that master of knowledge, the Discovery Channel. Three words: airplane disaster documentaries. I was hooked. Human error, mechanical failure, unpredictable weather – I soaked it all in. You may think it an odd way to deal with undesirable high-altitude stress. Maybe so. My rationale was that the more I understood the more I would feel OK (as if my knowing that human error was the number one cause of airplane crashes was going to help me when I was strapped in to seat 49J with as much command over the elements as an Englishman with his BBQ hoping for that “perfect summer evening”).

My obsession with these re-enacted disasters did however bring some consolation. Through these dramas I learnt that airplane crashes are taken very seriously. They are investigated at great depth with the knowledge gained from the studies used to make future flights safer. As I learnt about the resulting developments in airplane technology my fascination with the complexity of airplanes grew and grew. I am in total awe of how advanced these modern vehicles are.

Men have sat in rooms and thought and schemed and sketched and calculated and come out with things like Concorde. Absolutely incredible. Airplane designers have my total respect. Airplane economy-section planners on the other hand … I digress.

As with my marvels at airplane technology I am profoundly in awe and wowed by scientific discoveries. As I write, NASA’s Martian rover, aptly named ‘Curiosity’, is scrambling around the Red Planet at the beginning of its two-year mission to see if conditions were ever suitable for life. Utterly fascinating.

Science describes the world we live in. It unravels mysteries that stun us with their complexity and beauty. Now, some have said, that with all of our acquired collective scientific understanding there is no need today for God to explain things. We can comprehend our world now in ways we couldn’t possibly fathom a century ago and therefore science and knowledge have replaced faith and superstition.

But science is what science is, a description of the way things are. Science relates theories and laws and provides a deeper understanding of what is physically there. Science enhances my understanding of the greatness of the makeup of the world but to conflate my knowledge of the way things work with the question of the existence of God, who explains why things exist, is to make a serious category mistake.

Being in increasing wonder of the way it all works only serves to enhance my utter awe of God. John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, writing in the Times put it this way, “The more Newton understood of the mathematical structure of the universe, the more he admired the creative genius of God, not the less.”

Science is the poetry we use to articulate the genius of God expressed in the creation of the universe. It is a language to explain what exists, not an explanation to the question of why it exists.  Just as understanding how a well-designed plane keeps me safe at 36,000 feet goes no way to understanding what I’m doing in the plane in the first place.

This article first appeared in the Nov/Dec edition of Sorted Magazine.

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For ten years Bill Watterson entertained the world through his cartoon series, Calvin and Hobbes. In these cartoons Calvin – an intrepid little boy – is always off on some grand adventure with his faithful sidekick, Hobbes.

Calvin’s father – a hybrid of Watterson’s own father and himself – is often seen trying to help little Calvin “build character”, usually in the middle of a camping trip gone wrong. Yeah, you may have been there too.

Calvin regularly fails to see the point of this character building exercise, often noting how the lessons in life his father so eagerly dishes out seem to save his father some expense.

For many of us, we can relate to little Calvin when we experience suffering. It may be personal and felt, it may be trivial and inconvenient, it may be grotesque and life-altering.

Calvin felt left alone to suffer without meaning and without support.

There is a difference however between the world of Calvin and Hobbes and this life. His name is Jesus. Christianity says that there’s nothing man can do to make it to God. Instead, God came to man. His name is Jesus.

When it comes to suffering Jesus suffers alongside us. We do not have a God indifferent to the human condition. He has been there. And he is with us in our pain, no matter the circumstances.

More than that too, Jesus suffered for us. He willingly, lovingly and purposefully laid down his own life to pay a price that was around our necks. He suffered in agony, alone for hours and he did it thinking of each of us.

There is a present, felt reality about suffering in this world. Some of us will go through more than others but all of us will suffer and all will die.

Jesus’ suffering wasn’t pointless. It had a purpose. More than that, it had ultimate purpose that speaks into this life as well as the next. And there’s more good news: Jesus can use your pain and your suffering and turn it for good.

Suffering and pain can devastate joy, tear up hope, bring the strong to their knees and cause us to cry out, “Why?” In this world gone bad Jesus came to bring healing. He came that we might be saved out of despair and into a living, lasting hope. He’s done it all for us.

Jesus suffered and died that we might see him through our suffering and live.

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